


One Step at a Time

by bisasterdi, Soaponarope



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: (for each other and for the Earth), Actually a mixture of prose and epistolary, Epistolary, Feelings Realization, Gen, Just an Angel and a Demon trying to make their way, Misunderstandings, Negotiating their place in the world after averting armageddon, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Realizations, Reunions, Separations, or rather post-notapocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26583631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisasterdi/pseuds/bisasterdi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soaponarope/pseuds/Soaponarope
Summary: Now that they’ve heroically saved the world from the machinations of heaven and hell, what are a retired angel and demon to do? Aziraphale and Crowley come to realize that the world they love is still very much under siege—but should they get involved in sorting out humanity’s problems? And if they did, what do two supernatural beings know about fighting social injustice, climate change, and other destructive forces that make it seem like the real apocalypse is just around the corner?  Some things are too big to simply “miracle” better, and the road ahead seems unimaginably long. But as humans have always known, all journeys start one step at a time, and a friend walking beside you makes all the difference.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 32
Collections: GO-Events POV Pairs Works





	1. Prologue: Letters

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a part of GO-Events POV Pairs. Soaponarope is writing Crowley POV, bisasterdi is writing Aziraphale POV, and everything else is a shared effort between the two of us. The work is a mixture of epistolary and regular prose, and we'll be exploring what an angel and a demon might be able to help with now that they're permanent Earth residents.
> 
> Title taken from this wonderful quote from Ruth Bader Ginsberg:  
> "Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time."

Dear  ~~Sir Witchfinder~~ Sergeant Shadwell,

I hope this letter finds you well after ~~that bonkers~~ what happened at Tadfield Air Base. What a crazy day, and not even any witches involved! I mean, except for my ~~friend~~ girlfriend that is, which is actually the reason I’m writing to you today. She, Anathema, I mean, well you can understand how a person sensitive to the...supernatural...might be bothered...by the goings on. And I thought, well, maybe your ~~landlady~~ ~~girlfriend~~ Madame Tracy? (Not sure if she's still drawing aside the veil, not that there would be anything wrong with that if she was, right? Ha ha.) She might have some understanding about that and maybe, if it’s not too much trouble and she’s not busy, she might be willing to speak to Anathema about it sometime? She'd like to call, if it isn't too much trouble for Madame Tracy, but as you've moved, we'd need the new number. If that's all right? Or she could always ring us here. I'll add the number of our new flat at the bottom. 

~~Sincerely,~~ ~~Kind Regards,~~ ~~Your Friend,~~

~~ Private Pulsi ~~

Newt 

* * *

Hello Anathema,

Lovely speaking with you the other day, dearie! I was ever so sad to have to tell you before that I didn't get Mr. Aziraphale's contact information while he was…well, riding along with me, as it were. I should have asked my Mr. Shadwell before we rang off, as it turns out. I didn't know they knew each other at all, but wouldn't you know! He knows exactly where Mr. Aziraphale's bookshop is, and he's given me the address to pass along to you. (Oh, he's had a lot to say about the witches conjuring up trouble together, but he doesn't mean any harm, not really.)

He's a lovely man, that Mr. Aziraphale, and ever so accommodating. I'm sure he wouldn't mind a bit if you contacted him, and I'm sure he has more answers than either of us have to give you. I had a front row seat, so to speak, and I still couldn't say at all what went on that day!

Give Newt a kiss for us, if you would. Nice boy, that Newt. He's still blushing 'round you, I'd expect. Next time we’re in town we should all go for a nice cup of tea.

Love and kisses,

Tracy

* * *

Mr. Fell:

My name is Anathema Device. I don't know if you'll remember me, but I am Agnes Nutter's descendent. Also, your friend in the dark glasses hit me with his car. And stole my book. Anyway, I hope it’s okay that I’m sending you this letter; Ms. Tracy suggested that I write to you because, well, I’m having a little trouble with the end of the world. Or the lack of the end of the world. Or really just making sense of any of it, to be completely honest. Actually, as long as I'm being honest, I should probably admit that I don't care if it's okay that I'm sending you this letter. I need answers, Mr. Fell, and I know you’ve got them.

Agnes had answers for me, but they ran out a couple of months ago, back in Tadfield. I've been trying to move forward, but I don't think I can until I understand. How do I know if it was really the end? I mean, you have to admit it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Adam just somehow made the  _ literal devil _ go back to hell? What if there’s still more to do? What if I still need the prophecies?  ~~ Sometimes I wish I didn’t burn ~~

I realize this is terribly rude, and I don't want to scare you off, but who  _ are _ you? Did you know that your bookshop has been exactly where it is since the beginning of the 19th century, and I dug an old article out on microfiche that had a photo of someone who looks an awful lot like you...in 1847? And how did you know to go to the air base? I had centuries of my family interpreting Agnes’s prophecies to help me put it together, but how could you have figured it out so quickly? Did you know Armageddon was coming? And who is your book-stealing friend who wears dark glasses while driving at night and knew the devil was coming before he showed up?

I have a lot of questions, Mr. Fell. Ms. Tracy seemed to think you would be able to help me make sense of all this, and it’s not like I have a whole lot of other options. I suppose all I can do is ask if you would be willing to meet sometime to discuss the events of last August. We’re living in London now, Newt and I, so I could certainly come by any time that’s convenient for you.  ~~ Please ~~

Anathema Device


	2. Coffeeshops and the Letter

Anthony J. Crowley, demon formerly of Hell but now most emphatically freelance, woke up on the ceiling again, restless at the thought of yet another day stretched out in front of him with nothing in particular to do. How was it that for the millenia he was…employed…he endlessly schemed to skive off—even going so far as to conspire with an angel in an effort to avoid work—but now that he was free of obligations he could hardly stand to sit still?

There was one silver lining, at least: he’d woken up early enough to catch the morning rush at Starbucks. He could bask in the chaos of pre-caffeinated customers yelling just to be heard over the constant din of blenders and coffee grinders, office interns struggling to open the door while holding precarious stacks of beverage carriers and paper bags full of baked goods, sleep-deprived students mentally calculating the best way to convert their meager handfuls of coins into the maximum amount of caffeine. 

Maybe he would pull out all the stops and visit a drive-thru location, even though it would be a little out of the way (what way? Not like he had anywhere to be.) When Crowley had first mentioned the idea of a “drive-in” restaurant to a couple of Texans, he never imagined it would return such dividends. At the time it had seemed pretty straightforward, if limited—encourage gluttony and sloth at the same time by giving people a way to eat nutritionally questionable food without ever leaving their vehicles. But, as always, humans put their own spin on the concept, wringing out all the pleasant aspects of sharing a meal or a cuppa in favor of  _ optimization _ . Drive-ins turned into drive-thrus, equipped with tinny little speakers that worked intermittently and often incited yelling (as if that would somehow make a customer’s voice easier to understand), hostility (when a muttering, mumbling customer inevitably received an incorrect order), and delays. Even under the best of circumstances customers would leave angry, and workers would leave stressed and drained—and never mind the ever-growing line of cars that would extend back from the drive-thru window to wrap around the building as someone inevitably held up the entire queue with a ridiculously complicated order. Yes, a morning at the drive-thru was just what Crowley needed—it was practically self-care.

And if it would give him the opportunity to grab one of those sugary, only peripherally coffee-related monstrosities that Aziraphale favored, so much the better. He’d wanted to stop by the bookshop for a few days now, but what would he say? They no longer had a need to compare notes on the Care and Feeding of the (not) Antichrist, or haggle over how to divvy up their assigned blessings and temptations. Crowley never wanted to go back to the way it was before, all clandestine exchanges of information with heaven and hell breathing down their necks, but now that they were on their own side, so to speak, he wasn’t sure how to go forward either. 

But, when all else failed, there was food—after all, humans had been sharing meals over campfires and bringing each other casseroles since pretty much the dawn of creation. So he would spend a morning scratching his itch for mayhem, then drop in on Aziraphale with a drink and a pastry and an  _ Oh this? I was just in the neighborhood spreading my demonic wiles and really just focussed on my work and not on missing you or wondering if we’re the kind of friends who spend time together for no particular reason; thought I’d drop by.  _ Decision made, Crowley magnanimously allowed gravity to impose its silly rules upon his corporation once again, then rose from his bed for a spot of yoga and a cautionary glare at the houseplants before heading out. 

It was funny, Crowley mused as he walked in the door, that from London to Kansas City to Tokyo, all Starbucks smelled exactly the same: coffee, of course, and  _ sweet _ , with an undertone of sterile plastic. Ingenious, really, that the CEOs and CFOs and all those other acronyms had found a way to take the experience of stopping for a beverage—an experience that for centuries had been grounded in the opportunity to catch up with an old friend, make a new one, or to simply sit quietly and soak in the local culture upon arriving in a new place—and render it completely devoid of socialization and any semblance of connection with the city located outside its gleaming glass doors. 

He effortlessly made his way to the counter, as the customers who had been queuing suddenly realized they had left their purses and wallets in the car, or were overcome by an urgent need to wash their hands one more time before ordering. He purchased an astoundingly expensive artisanal coffee for himself and the salted caramel mocha frappucino with extra whip that the angel had a weakness for, no matter how fervently he defended “the authenticity, Crowley, the ambience!” of smaller, local cafes. He waited for his order, leaning casually against a barstool in the very picture of stylish disinterest, and let the cacophony of the morning rush wash over him.

It wasn’t long before Crowley noticed an uptick in the general miasma of low-grade annoyance permeating the building. He descended out of his idle reverie and took in his surroundings. From his vantage point by the bar, he could see the cause of everyone’s irritation—the same car had been parked at the pickup window for upwards of five minutes now. Crowley listened in on the conversation between the drive-thru operator and the driver of the offending mini-Cooper, who was thrusting a lidless beverage cup in the operator’s flushed and frazzled face while angrily pointing at the contents.

“—clearly nonfat milk! You people won’t stay in business for long if this is how you treat your customers; why, I shouldn’t have to pay for your mistakes!”

“Sir,” the operator forced out through gritted teeth, “I am happy to remake your drink to your satisfaction...for the third time...but I simply can’t let you have your entire order for free.” A glance behind the counter revealed several large jugs of coffee, a box of baked goods, and a catering pack of empty cups and packaged utensils. 

Crowley debated. On the one hand, this was exactly what he’d hoped for when he’d decided to come here this morning. On the other hand, there was a reason philosophers had collectively spent centuries inconclusively pondering what happens when an unstoppable force (a blustering mid-level manager used to getting his own way, en route to the team-building conference he’s been dreading for months) meets an immovable object (a veteran barista who’s seen it all and is thoroughly unimpressed with mini-Cooper’s grandstanding, reminded once again that her job doesn’t pay nearly enough some days). Conflict was fun, but impasses were just plain boring _. _ He stepped forward.

“Hey! ‘Scuse me?” The drive-thru operator turned around, clearly annoyed at yet another customer wanting attention. Crowley held out the kind of sleek, black credit card that was very good at resolving impasses. “Why don’t you go ahead and add that wanker’s total to my order?”

The operator—Megan, the nametag read—blinked. “Seriously? You want to pay for him? It’s kind of a lot, catering for some big conference,” she said skeptically.

“Sure,” Crowley responded with a toothy smile. “Pay it forward, am I right?”

“Er, right.” Megan reached out to take the card but paused, unconvinced. “You know, I think that’s for people who actually need help and...kindness. Not—” 

Engines growled. Horns honked. Food warmers dinged. Crowley raised an eyebrow.

“—rich people bailing each other out,” Megan grumbled, even as she snatched the card and turned away to the register. Crowley watched her complete the transaction then grudgingly pass mini-Cooper’s catering order through the window. A moment later she returned to the counter with Crowley’s card and receipt, along with his and Aziraphale’s coffees. As he signed the receipt, he leaned in.

“Don’t look so glum,” he said. He smiled, a real one this time. “He’ll get what’s coming to him.”

Without waiting for a response, he scooped up his coffees and headed out the door. With a slink in his step, he blissfully imagined an hour from now, when a conference room full of corporate employees steeling themselves for the mind-numbing day ahead would discover that their morning coffee was tepid, uncaffeinated, and for some reason all the sugar packets contained salt. Pay it forward, indeed.

Mood lifted, Crowley got in the Bentley and placed the cups on his passenger seat. He spared a stern glance, lest they get any ideas about spilling on his original 1932 upholstery, then peeled out of the Starbucks and sped down the busy streets towards the bookshop. 

* * *

“Morning, angel! Was just over at Starbucks for a little bit of demonic mayhem and I got you one of those caramel frappa-whatever things you like.”

Aziraphale tilted his head to look at Crowley over the reading glasses he'd put on to go over Ms. Device's letter yet again, though he felt no closer to a decision than he had the first time he'd read it.

"Oh, lovely. My tea's gone cold for the second time this morning, and you know how I feel about using a miracle to—" He cut himself off, seeing that awful green mermaid on the unnecessarily large cup Crowley was holding out toward him, and pulled a face that made his glasses slide down uncomfortably low on his nose. "Honestly, Crowley, you'd think after everything we've been through to keep humanity safe, you could honor them by going to a real coffee shop instead of that overly-sterile, corporate monstrosity that—" He paused, accepting the cup and taking a deep, long drink of the bittersweet, blessedly cool beverage. "Oh, that's just wonderful. Thank you."

Crowley made a dismissive noise and began idly running his fingers over the volumes Aziraphale had positioned near the windows, newer books that wouldn't be ruined by the exposure to sunlight, or to fingertips slightly damp with condensation from a coffee cup. Aziraphale bit back a sigh. He wasn't at all certain what he should consider 'normal' in this new, post-employment territory, but he supposed that Crowley refusing to accept his gratitude felt as normal as anything else might have.

He wanted to ask why Crowley was here, if he'd come because he'd wanted to, if he was doing so out of force of habit, or if he simply lacked more interesting activities with which to amuse himself. It was impossible to imagine a world, post-apocalypse or no, where that question wouldn't lead to Crowley's rapid exit, and take them further from any sort of feeling of certainty between the two of them.

They weren't built to be straightforward with each other, he supposed, or had never learnt the motions of it, never built the muscle memory for it.

He looked down, and for the first time since it had arrived, he found himself uplifted by the existence of the letter. While Ms. Device's insistence on seeking out answers for events he'd hoped she and the others might not even retain memory of had certainly seemed inconvenient when he'd first laid eyes on her missive, it now had exactly one shining aspect to recommend it. Here was something he and Crowley could probably discuss for hours, possibly over dinner in some fascinating little cafe, or in the bookshop's office over a bottle he would miraculously find he'd put away for a special occasion.

"It's lucky you've arrived, actually." Aziraphale carefully adjusted his glasses back into place, peering over the letter one more time as he prepared to hand it over to Crowley. "I've received a letter from Anathema Device, you see." He held out the letter, somehow knowing exactly the posture Crowley would take in response; leaning away, nose scrunched, body language suggesting the offering was something awful rather than a simple puzzle for the two of them to solve together. 

“Anathema Device?” Crowley said, holding the letter away from himself, as though it was about to combust.

"Agnes Nutter's descendent? Found herself at Tadfield Airbase with us on one particularly memorable recent occasion?"

“Ah, book girl! She’s Nutter’s spawn? Well, that certainly explains...at least a couple things, anyway. What’s she got to do with you?”

"I'm afraid she'd like some answers," Aziraphale whispered, feeling terribly as though Upstairs could still be looking over his shoulder, the spectre of their tacit disapproval at any fondness he might display toward humanity still lurking in the shadows. "She's written to request a meeting of some sort toward that end. I've been sat here all morning trying to think of a suitably polite way I might rebuff her."

“Answers? Can’t imagine why she thinks we’d have any of those. Without her book we’d still be faffing about with nuns and that horrible Dowling politician.” He straightened abruptly and turned to face Aziraphale, giving his full attention for the first time. “Or do you mean  _ answers  _ like…”

"Answers about…" Aziraphale began, trailing off and gesturing broadly around himself. Crowley raised an eyebrow and nodded. Aziraphale blinked, horrified at the prospect. "I certainly hope that isn't it. I can't imagine how disheartening it might be if she—" 

“If she knew how little information occult beings like us actually get about things like answers, and plans?” Crowley asked sardonically.

Well. That was an unfortunate way to phrase it, but Aziraphale could hardly argue. 

"Quite," he agreed, frowning at the careful penmanship on the letter in his hands.

“Well, let her be disheartened, then. Seems that’s the price of knowledge these days.” 

"It would hardly do to reveal ourselves, Crowley, even to someone who's seen what Ms. Device has seen. I'm sure she'll find peace with it on her own, given time. Humans are eminently malleable. They all get along quite well without us, normally. Certainly the more…troubling aspects of that day in Tadfield will fade from her thoughts in time." 

“Oh sure, she’ll just forget about Satan rising up from the earth to claim his son - who, by the way, is her next door neighbor! Yeah, that seems like the kind of thing that would fade away in time.” Crowley huffed. “Poor girl probably thinks she’s losing her mind.”

"You couldn't even remember her name, and now you're advocating for the two of us to tell her all about living on Earth for thousands of years, being an angel and a demon, and coming within a hair's breadth of failing to stop the destruction of…" He gestured around himself yet again, swinging his arms with enough fervor to knock the glasses off his face, and he startled as they clattered to the surface of his desk, one of the lenses cracking.

“Well, at this point, why not?” As Aziraphale fumbled for his glasses, Crowley snatched the letter off the table and scanned it quickly. “She’s halfway there already. And if you think about it, we kind of owe her.”

" _ Owe  _ her? Are you  _ mad _ ? It's over. We should allow her time to let things go back to normal, and not get involved."

“Not get—we’re already involved! She’s already involved! All of us were already  _ involved _ from the moment Agnes Nutter put quill to paper. And that’s why we owe her.” He sobered, brow furrowing as he continued, subdued, “If we didn’t have Agnes’s last prophecy…I don’t know about you, angel, but I think I would have been out of ideas. You know,  _ after _ .” 

Aziraphale pictured the scene that day, Michael swanning in with that pitcher of holy water, and knowing that Crowley would have ceased to exist then and there if not for Agnes's cryptic words about choosing faces. He looked at Crowley, tense shoulders, chest heaving with emphatic breaths as he gave Aziraphale that  _ look _ , the one he'd always worn whenever Aziraphale'd had to tell him no when every last shred of him was screaming internally to say  _ yes _ .

"Do you think we could do her more good than harm?" he asked, hoping Crowley would hear the earnestness behind the question and respond in kind.

Crowley sighed. “I don’t know.” He plopped down in the chair opposite Aziraphale and tossed the letter back onto the table. “Anything’s possible, but look—everyone else on this planet just took a funny turn one day and then carried on. But she apparently remembers enough to come asking questions. I think if she was the sort to be better off in blissful ignorance, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.” He reached across the table and plucked the glasses from Aziraphale’s hands. With a quiet snap and a sweep of his fingers, the cracked lens reverted to its unbroken state. He offered the repaired glasses, which Aziraphale accepted, feeling his face begin to heat. 

A wave of gratitude overcame Aziraphale as he replaced them carefully, perched on his nose, and noticed that Crowley had also cleaned away the smudges that Aziraphale always left behind as he absentmindedly adjusted them. It was exactly the sort of thing Crowley was always doing for him, never seeming to expect anything in return. 

"If you truly believe it's the right thing to do, perhaps we could meet with her together?" Aziraphale tried to tell himself he was merely asking on Ms. Device's behalf, that if they were going to do this, she'd get a clearer picture and better answers if both of them were there. Were he being honest with himself, however, he merely  _ wanted _ to face this with Crowley. Anything difficult had always seemed easier with Crowley by his side.

“Oh, we’d better, unless she’s got all day to hear about every detail from apple-tree duty to Armageddon. Someone’s got to keep you focused."

Aziraphale acted quite put out at Crowley's little jab, but it was really to keep himself from smiling, now that the two of them had another task to face together.

"Well. If you insist, I suppose that would be for the best. Would you like to write to her, or shall I?"

“Ehhh, she wrote to you; it’d be weird to hear back from me. Just set up a time for whenever, not like I’ve got anything on these days.”

"I'll take care of it later this evening." Aziraphale paused, wondering if Crowley would disappear without anything to entertain him. "With that business behind us, perhaps I could interest you in a walk? I think I'd like to close the shop for the day."

“Sure, could be nice to stretch my legs. Been driving all morning, all the way out to Belvedere to get your fancy coffee.”

"Why on earth would you go to all that trouble when there are perfectly serviceable—locally owned, with enchanting atmosphere—coffee shops on nearly every street corner in London?" 

“Of course there are,” the bell over the book shop door tinkled as they walked out onto the bustle of midday Soho, “but they don’t have drive-thrus.”


	3. Anathema

Ms. Device,

Thank you for your recent letter. I do hope my reply finds you well.

I must confess some initial reticence on my part with regards to your request, but upon thinking more on it and receiving some valuable counsel on the matter, I would be happy to accommodate you. I'm afraid I have a small number of caveats.

I believe it would benefit all of us if I were to bring a guest with me—my "friend in the dark glasses," as you have referred to him. He may have information you would find elucidating as well. Secondly, as I'm not entirely certain this meeting, or the conversation which will ensue, is truly in your best interests, I may yet choose to keep some of the information you seek to myself.

I will, however, promise that myself and my companion will do our best to help you find peace with the events of that day at the Tadfield Airbase. We can make ourselves available at any of the times you will find listed on the enclosure I've included, and we can meet at the private location of your choosing. (I hope you'll understand that the topics you wish to discuss are of a sensitive nature, and should be broached only in the safety that seclusion can afford us.)

Awaiting your reply,

A.Z. Fell

(enc)

* * *

"Once Adam...well, renounced Satan, I suppose, and embraced his humanity, that put an end to all of that ridiculous apocalypse business. You were there for that part, of course, and it was, indeed, exactly what it appeared to be. There was just some light bookkeeping after that—" 

“Light bookkeeping,” Crowley repeated flatly. As if being literally dragged to hell was on par with logging a new delivery of first editions into inventory or balancing the till at the end of the day. 

"I'm quite certain there was  _ some  _ paperwork my side had to file," Aziraphale insisted, grimacing in Crowley's direction.

Crowley waved a hand dismissively. The angel was probably better off thinking that Heaven had been focussed on triplicate forms and balancing ledgers instead of  _ shut your stupid mouth and die already. _ “Well, you know my lot don’t go in for paperwork. Er, former lot, anyway.”

"So you aren't a demon anymore?" Anathema said, the glazed look that had descended over her face clearing as she narrowed her eyes at Crowley. Impressive for a human, really. He’d been worried when they arrived at the flat earlier in the afternoon, Anathema and Aziraphale both stiff and formal and warily circling each other like cats. Newt had fumbled through introductions and even produced a spread for tea, but had remained silent and gobsmacked throughout Aziraphale’s narrative. At the moment, his wide eyes and thousand-yard stare betrayed a mind trying desperately to hold itself together in the face of a substantial quantity of batshit. But Anathema seemed to have recovered quickly from the shock, or maybe she was just used to a certain baseline level of batshit, what with a lifetime of Agnes’s prophecies under her belt.

“Eh, once a demon, always a demon,” Crowley responded. “It’ll take more than a pink slip to change that.” 

"And you," Anathema said, turning toward Aziraphale. "You're an actual, real, angel. Like, from heaven."

"Ah," Aziraphale began, and Crowley watched as he stammered for a moment before squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath. Crowley could almost feel the angel's wings manifesting in this dimension as he appeared to take on what Crowley thought of as his  _ Be Not Afraid _ posture and ever so faintly began to glow.

Crowley snorted. “Easy there, angel. I don’t think book girl needs you flapping around her living room.” He directed his attention back to Anathema, who had grown tense and somewhat pale when Aziraphale started ramping up. “Yep, real deal here, both of us.”

Anathema sat quietly for a minute, collecting herself. “So you’ve been to hell?”

“Sure.”

“What’s it like?”

“Shit,” Crowley said simply, and Newt appeared to choke on his biscuit.

“And heaven?” Anathema asked, whacking Newt on the back without taking her eyes off the occult beings in her living room.

Aziraphale wrung his hands, clearly unsure how to answer. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea—”

“It’s also shit,” Crowley interrupted. Aziraphale puffed up with his usual righteous indignation, but Crowley simply raised an eyebrow at the angel.

"Yes, well, I...I'm given to understand that it's a much more lovely experience for the human souls who reside there than for the rank and file angels." His shoulders sagged. "It isn't what it perhaps should be," he added, almost to himself.

Crowley’s eyebrow rose further, but he held his peace. This was the first time he’d heard Aziraphale openly express an opinion about what anything associated with the Almighty should or shouldn’t be. “Anyway,” Crowley continued on hastily, “Heaven’s a bit shit, hell’s _definitely_ shit, and you humans have it best by miles. Hence, why we saved the world for you.”

"As far as I've been able to put together," Anathema said, pulling herself shakily to her feet, "I was there with Agnes's prophecies, Newt was there to break the computer system, Adam and his friends were there to literally defeat Satan and the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Tracy was there to keep you," she said, whirling on Aziraphale and holding out her finger, "from killing Adam, and Shadwell—" She lost her steam there, opening and closing her mouth as she fought for something to say, "—must have done something in there somewhere. What is it that the two of you did?"

“What did  _ we  _ do?” Crowley sputtered. “How do you like that, angel? You get discorporated and soul-hitchhike your way to Tadfield, I drive through a wall of fire and  _ stop time _ , and it’s ‘What did the two of you do?’”

"Yes, my dear, I take your point," Aziraphale said, shuffling over to sit a bit closer to Crowley, as though he felt the need to put up a united front to defend themselves. Crowley appreciated the show of solidarity. "However, you must admit, this charming young lady isn't that far wrong."

“ _ Et tu, Brute? _ Figures. Anyway,” Crowley continued, “we did plenty, thank you very much. Or perhaps  _ you  _ wanted to give Adam a pep talk to help him give Satan the old two-fingered salute?"

“Hold on,” Anathema said, “you stopped time? I don’t remember that. But, then, I guess I wouldn’t. Do you do that a lot? Oh my god, are you doing it now?”

“Are you kidding?” He shuddered. “I slept for a solid week after all that. Of course I don’t do it a lot. Really there’s not much call for that level of miracle these days. Not when most humans’ll enthusiastically hang themselves if you just give them the rope they’re practically begging for.”

“Hang themselves? What exactly have you been doing to us?”

“Woah, woah,” Crowley backpedaled, “you humans are always so literal. I just mean that everyone has things they want, or at least things they  _ think  _ they want. Like, wouldn’t it be great if I could get a moment’s peace from this stupid telephone that’s attached to my hip and demanding my attention at all hours of the day and night? But wouldn’t you know it, when I took down the mobile network—for less than an hour, mind you—all they did was get angry and take it out on each other! Why bother stopping time when you can put the whole of London in a bad mood all afternoon and let them make everyone else miserable on their own?”

“So you only do little stuff like that? You don’t, I don’t know, start wars and cause crops to die?” 

Crowley shrugged. “I mean, you’ve actually  _ met  _ War and Famine.”

Anathema next turned to Aziraphale. “And what about you, then, do you just rescue cats stuck up trees?”

"Oh, I do the odd blessing here and there. Spread a sense of goodwill and charity when it's appropriate. You can rest assured, however, that I do not meddle in anything approaching the free will of human beings. The world was set in motion by hands much more divine than mine, and it isn't my place—or Crowley's, for that matter—to presume ourselves up to the task of altering the course of events on Earth." 

"Can you see the future, like Agnes? Is it all set in stone?" Anathema pursed her lips. "Did you know what would happen today, for instance? Or is there any…" she paused again, as though she was reluctant to spit out what she was really trying to ask. "Is there any free will at all?"

“Well that’s a question for the ages, innit?” Crowley drawled. “You get to make choices, don’t you? And if you get it wrong, you can always change your mind. Try again, no harm no foul, infinite possibilities and infinite sssssecond chances. And yet.” He leaned forward, feet flat on the floor and hands braced on his knees as he looked up directly into Anathema’s eyes, even as she stood accusingly in front him. 

“You could have chosen not to spend your life carrying out your ten-times-great grandmother’s ergot-fueled prophecies, but you did. You’re an adult and you have more money than God—and believe me, I know—you could have done anything, gone anywhere, but here you are.” He peered over the rims of his darkened glasses, and the part of Crowley that could never be forgiven coiled in smug satisfaction at the way her breath caught and her eyes widened as she was forcibly reminded that she had asked a fallen bloody angel for his opinion about free will. “Sssso you tell me, human: do you feel free?”

"My dear," Aziraphale cut in, the soothing angel voice back now. "Of course you have free will. The choices you've made in your life were all yours to make, and from everything I've seen, you've acquitted yourself marvelously. As Crowley so helpfully pointed out a moment ago, you didn't have to risk your safety in a bid to help save the Earth and everyone on it, but you did. I can't think of anything purer of heart than that."

“I was just...doing what I was supposed to do.” She trailed off, unsatisfied, and finally sat down again next to Newt.

"Everyone played their part, the forces of destruction were averted, and all is now right with the world," Aziraphale pronounced, looking every inch the guardian of Eden, presiding over Adam and Eve with an air of benevolent contentment—and complete obliviousness to questions of knowledge and apples and the coming storms.

“I’m sorry,” Anathema said sharply, “did you say that all is right with the world? When we just came within a hair’s breadth of World War III?”

"Those were quite extraordinary circumstances," Aziraphale explained, and Crowley could see how affronted Anathema was at the angel's unwitting air of condescension. "Heaven and Hell contrived to put the world in that position. It didn't happen without a great deal of undue meddling from above and below, and that was why we had to intercede."

“Are you sure about that? Even without your meddling, humanity has enough nuclear weapons to blow us all to kingdom come a million times over, and annihilation could just as easily come at the hands of some maniacal world leader instead of the four horsemen. Maybe it didn’t happen this time, but what’s going to happen next time, if we’re not here to stop it?”

"But my dear, as I said, we interfered precisely  _ because  _ it took the combined efforts of Heaven and Hell to attempt to start the war." Aziraphale looked pleadingly at Crowley, who could only shrug in return. Humans did seem to have a tendency to go completely ballistic all on their own. "Surely humanity would stop short of total destruction, left to your own devices?"

Anathema continued on, picking up steam. “And even if we don’t blow each other up, what about when we cook ourselves to death because oil companies and corporate overlords care more about making profits than keeping this planet livable? Did you know that the rainforests are absorbing less and less CO 2  each year? They’re shrinking and dying and they can’t keep up. And if that’s not enough, it won’t be long before the population of the world is going to require 40% more fresh water than we’ll actually have! People will die; people are  _ already  _ dying. They’re starving, they’re sick, they’re murdered by corrupt governments and police violence and institutionalized racism and…" Anathema gasped in some air, looking shaken as she watched the lack of reaction from Crowley and Aziraphale. "And...what? You aren't going to do anything?" 

And this was why Crowley never let even his most dear and trusted humans in on the otherworldly nature of his existence. They always ended up asking him to fix things. “Us? What do you want us to do? Wave a magic wand and make it all better?  _ Make _ all those corporations and governments and cops suddenly change their minds? What does that do to your precious free will?”

"Ah, yes, Crowley, that's an excellent point," Aziraphale said, with the air of a drowning man getting his arms around a life preserver. "The essence of humanity is free will, making choices, living with the consequences. If we were to brush away all of the world's problems, it would change the very fabric of the world. What it's made of. The significance of each life here and everything that's created or destroyed."

“And Adam said no more messing people about. You may not have an appreciation for such things, but when the Prince of Hell’s son says to leave it alone, you leave it alone.” However much the boy may have renounced his heritage for now, Crowley was definitely not ruling out a potential change of heart. His limited interactions with young humans had revealed a disturbing tendency to go completely unhinged between puberty and some nebulous point in their twenties when everything seemed to settle into place. He was absolutely  _ not _ going to give a hormonal teenage antichrist any reason to think of him less than fondly, or preferably, at all.

"But you don't work for them anymore, do you?" Anathema narrowed her eyes at them, and Crowley had the very uncomfortable feeling that she could see directly inside him, rummaging through his thoughts and plucking out anything she could find as a weakness. 

“That doesn’t mean they can’t come for us at any moment. They already did once, and maybe we put them off for a while with a little help from your grandma, but we will  _ always _ have to watch our backs. 'S not like they're going to forgive and forget.” He laughed bitterly. “Forgiveness isn’t really a thing for us. Them. Hell. Kind of the whole point, really.”

"It isn't really a ‘thing’ for Heaven either, is it?" Aziraphale's face clouded over. "In the end."

“No. You don’t need their forgiveness anyway, angel. They don’t deserve you. Never did.”

"I…thank you." If the angel had reminded Crowley before of the blissful if naive guardian of Eden, he now looked as unsettled as he had in those moments when the two of them looked on from afar as Adam slaughtered a lion in the desert and the first drops of rain began to fall. 

Anathema only gave them a moment before she was back on them. "Okay fine, so don’t mess people about, don’t use your special powers. You don’t need miracles to change someone’s mind, just words and actions. We make changes—make a difference—all the time without any stupid powers. And you chose us, humans,  _ Earth _ . You're part of us now. If you wanted to save this world so bad, get to work!”

* * *

Crowley pulled the driver’s side door of the Bentley closed after him, shutting out the rest of the world and leaving him and Aziraphale in their own familiarly quiet bubble. 

“Well, I think that went rather...adequately...don’t you, my dear?”

“Nnng,” Crowley hedged. He willed the engine to life and pulled out into the crush of traffic, which parted politely around the Bentley as it slipped around and between the rush hour commuters. 

“Really, I don’t know what I was so worried about. She took all the news rather well in the end, although I’m less sure about her young man; I do hope he’s all right. And, I should say, her questions weren’t nearly as worrisome as I was expecting. Perfectly natural that someone in her position should wonder about divine forces and matters of free will.”

“Right. Natural. Understandable. No answers to be had here, but no harm in asking, am I right?” 

“Well. Yes. Quite.” Aziraphale fidgeted in his seat, despite the many subtle adjustments the Bentley had made over the decades to ensure the angel would always ride in perfect comfort. “At any rate, I certainly think we’ve discharged whatever debt we may have owed Agnes, and I can’t imagine that Ms. Device will be bothering us again.”

No, book girl herself probably wouldn’t bother them, but her parting words had yet to leave Crowley alone.  _ You’ve spent thousands of years here, observing us. Watching us learn, watching us screw up. Maybe it was all just a game for you, watching us run around like mice in a maze, but I don’t think you defy Heaven and Hell for just a game. You care, both of you, so stop pretending you’re above it all and get your hands dirty.” _ The heaven of it was that she was right. The other demons were wholly consumed with vengeance against the Other Side, and humans only caught their attention when they could be used to further their own agendas, no more interesting or worthwhile than pawns on a chess board. But Crowley had always cared more than was strictly healthy, or good for his career. At the same time, there was a substantial difference between giving a damn about some of the more remarkable humans and turning into a bleeding-heart force for...ugh,  _ good.  _ Crowley didn’t know how to do good, he knew how to cause trouble. He  _ liked  _ causing trouble. Of course if the humans all baked themselves to death on this rapidly warming rock, it wouldn’t be long before there was no trouble left to cause.

As Crowley took in the familiar street signs of Aziraphale’s neighborhood in Soho, he realized he’d been lost in thought for quite some time. He turned to Aziraphale to break the silence, but the angel looked similarly pensive, staring out the window with the faint crease between his eyebrows that usually precipitated a week holed up in his bookshop with the phone off the hook and the sign turned firmly to  _ Closed. _

Unsurprisingly, when Crowley pulled the Bentley to a stop outside his door, Aziraphale let himself out of the car with a tight smile. Before he could close the door, Crowley leaned across the seat.

“It’s early yet, angel, how about dinner? Any new place you want to try?” 

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m not feeling up to it tonight. Rather a long day today, don’t you think?”

“Right, long day, no problem. I’ll ring you,” he tried.

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale replied distractedly. “Safe trip home, my dear.” He closed the door gently behind him, and Crowley watched until he disappeared inside the shop. 


	4. Chapter 4

Aziraphale had spent the evening and early hours of the morning attempting—and failing miserably—to relax. He'd put some Schubert on the gramophone, sending the needle directly to the most familiar and reassuring portions of the symphony when his racing mind refused to calm, all to no avail. Even the most dependable volumes in his collection were powerless to distract him, he was annoyed to admit to himself, as he carefully closed the sole remaining copy in the world of one of Joanna Baillie's plays (thought by all respected literature academicians to have been burnt sometime in the early 1800s, Aziraphale noted with a suppressed smile.)

He couldn't shake his mind free of what Anathema had said to them or how troubling it was to have his careful detachment from the minutiae of human affairs breached so effectively by nothing more than a few well-placed words of common sense. Aziraphale had been set adrift by Heaven, spending his days trying not to think too much on what he truly was without them, but it had taken Anathema to point out that his place in this world he now fully belonged to should be more meaningful.

Was he still an angel? It seemed so, against all odds. He'd retained each of the abilities he'd been given by Her, even after their averted trials. His wings remained white. He still  _ felt  _ the same at the most basic levels of his physical and metaphysical makeup.

Did he remain a Principality? He had a feeling he knew how Gabriel would weigh in on that point, but it also appeared that Gabriel's word was not, in fact, the incontrovertible law of heaven itself, or of God and Her plans. Principalities were meant to protect. To guide. He'd been sent here to Earth, and each machination the Archangels had ever contrived to call him back had met with failure. 

The most meaningful question of all, however, was this: Did any of this matter, other than to Aziraphale? He was here, and he'd chosen the interests of Earth over those of Heaven. (Or more precisely, of the glorified administrators who handled the day-to-day workings for Her.) 

He was certain that the problems Anathema had outlined—terrifying prospects, all of them—had at least some truth to them. While she did seem prone to perhaps believing a bit too much on evidence too thin, Crowley hadn't argued against the specific points she'd raised, merely on their own places in correcting them. Crowley was much more cognizant of the state of the world in general, whereas Aziraphale had taught himself to tune it out after untold years of frustration with his inability to directly influence any of it. If Anathema had been talking rubbish, that would have been Crowley's first (and likely, only) form of rebuttal, instead of debating her solely on the reasons they shouldn't intervene.

It was with a deep sense of purpose, a certainty he'd rarely felt in his nearly uncountable years of existence both before and after he'd been sent to Earth to safeguard a garden, that he straightened his coat and locked the bookshop door firmly behind himself. His feet carried him to the nearest newsstand, where he found himself baffled at the array of papers available.

A scan of the headlines spoke of an obvious, wide divide between many of them, each proclaiming headlines at odds with those of the paper next to it. Aziraphale sighed heavily, feeling defeated.

"Need something you don't see here?"

Aziraphale whirled around, finding the wrinkled, wizened face of the person manning the stand looking back at him. It was the sort of face that betrayed exactly how much of life it had witnessed, with a brightness in the man's eyes that immediately set Aziraphale at ease.

"I'm sure what I seek is here," Aziraphale said, straightening his waistcoat just for the comfort the familiar gesture always brought him. "I merely wonder if I can recognize it." He cast his eyes over the parade of garishly large text and photos splashed across the newsprint. "Which of these are the most popular?"

The man—and Aziraphale finally noticed the nametag he wore, identifying him as 'Musab'—wrinkled his nose with distaste for just a moment before he went back to forced neutrality as he pointed at two stacks near him. "These two, mate, by miles."

"I see." Aziraphale watched Musab for a moment, reaching out with his own angelic power just the barest amount, and got an immediate impression of him. Steadfast, hard-working. Frustrated. A deep-seated fatigue borne of too many hours worked on too many days to keep his one-man newsstand afloat. A fundamentally good man, both at his core and in his daily deeds. Aziraphale sent him a sense of peace, followed by a blessing on his sleep, that the few hours Musab could devote to it would bring him more rest than they should. After a moment's thought, he added a moderate financial windfall that would reach him through some believable human means or another in the coming days, enough to ease the man's burden, at least somewhat.

It was exactly the sort of minor meddling he'd spent centuries engaging in, slipping each blessing in under the noses of his superiors, certain that each one was merely a drop in the overlarge bucket of general human struggle and misery. Exactly the sort of thing that Anathema had insinuated wasn't enough of a contribution to the fabric of humanity. He frowned, lost in thought, until Musab cleared his throat and pulled Aziraphale's attention back to the present.

"It's the wrong question. 'Which newspaper is the most popular.' The most popular of these rags aren't worth the ink used to print them. Even Wikipedia won't accept them as sources. I'd run the stand without carrying them, they make me so sick to my stomach to look at, but I'd go under in a month without the revenue."

"I see," Aziraphale said, trying to give the impression that he knew what a 'Wicky Paedia' was and why its lack of trust would be relevant to their conversation. He looked down again at one of the papers Musab had pointed out to him, whose front page proclaimed (in an enormous typeface)  **'END OF HUMAN RIGHTS FARCE.** ' Just below was a presumably unrelated set of photos featuring four lovely young women, but inexplicably focused predominantly on their plunging cleavage. Was this truly what passed for news? The 'discovery,' yet again, that women possessed breasts, and a repudiation of the concept of basic human rights?

He felt a little more sure of this Wicky organization and found himself supporting their rejection of such rubbish.

"You seem like a decent man. Deserve better than this toff, at any rate."

"I'd wager all of Britain deserves better than this." 

Musab reached over, picked up a paper from a much higher stack, and handed it to Aziraphale.

"Look, try this one. 'S not perfect, but for me, it's more reliable than most."

"I'm grateful for the help," Aziraphale told him earnestly, and he got the immediate impression that few people this man encountered in his day-to-day life even took the time to notice him, much less ask for and value his opinion. "What do I owe you?" He put his hand into his empty pocket, preparing to pull out whichever note would cover the price named.

"Haven't seen you here before, so the first one's free," Musab said, holding up a palm, refusing payment. 

"Oh, I couldn't," Aziraphale stammered. "I simply must insist—"

"It's my pleasure, sir. Just, come back and buy your papers here, when you're in the area."

"I shall," Aziraphale promised, frowning when he realized he still felt uncomfortably indebted. He looked around the stand, taking in the array of small, simple snacks and drinks that were also on offer. With a brief closing of his eyes and a moment of concentration, dozens of people in the surrounding area suddenly found themselves parched and peckish enough between meals to be on the lookout for a small treat, and their paths altered to include a quick pass by Musab and his newsstand. 

* * *

He placed the paper down on his desk in the still-closed bookshop, regarding it with a great deal of trepidation. His days of receiving assignments merely to bear witness (doing nothing, though his fingers had itched to pull energy down from above to fix it all, or at least ease the pain) to moments of human tragedy had long passed. Policies changed as time on Earth ticked forward, and no longer did Heaven see the worth in sending someone to watch as the horrors transpired.

Aziraphale had breathed a private sigh of relief when he'd realized his days of standing as Her silent observer had finished, something he now thought back on with great disappointment in himself. Hadn't it been the very  _ least  _ he could do, to witness while humanity bore the weight of Heaven and Hell's machinations, as well as the results of their own foibles and mistakes?

He was humbled as he leafed through the newspaper, taking in stories about the difficulties in the world that he couldn't even have imagined. Each new headline brought with it a different issue, every report seemingly picking up in the middle of a narrative Aziraphale lacked the context to fully understand. It now seemed obvious to him why so many of the people he brushed past in his daily outings seemed so troubled, so downtrodden.

Aziraphale wanted to run out of the bookshop and stop every person he found, asking them to explain to him what weighed on their minds, how they might begin to fix things if they had the power or the influence to do so. (Not, Aziraphale reminded himself, that he could snap his fingers and put those plans into action. Forced changes never held, not on the grand scale of things. Human nature was human nature, and it could only really be affected with true changes of heart.)

That wasn't something his angelic senses had taught him but a lesson that had come mostly from picking up Crowley's assignments here and there as part of the Arrangement. It was Crowley's voice in his head reinforcing it, sharing deep insights about how to push and prod at what a person really wanted to try to get the outcome necessary to complete the job— _ both  _ of their jobs. Aziraphale had found it necessary to re-contextualize the temptations in his own mind, justifying to himself why they didn't sully his own angelic spirit. He'd told himself they were really just tests, nothing Heaven didn't ask him to do for them as well, just described with prettier words. It had always been a worry, deep down, that it was all a lie he used to keep from feeling guilty, and that had kept him from examining it any further.

It was with great shock that he finally saw it: It had never been a lie. The assignments had always either canceled each other out or been interchangeable at their core, just couched in different terms. Heaven might send him to bless the flock of a sheepherder to 'keep the man on his righteous path,' whereas hell might have directed Crowley to make that same person prosperous with a flock of healthy animals in order to tempt him into pride or gluttony. How many times had the two of them laughed themselves sick after comparing notes only to find that it took minimal creativity to combine their separate tasks into one?

Crowley's greatest lesson, however, had been quite different from that. It was the secret both of them had hidden from their sides, eager to remain on Earth instead of being recalled. The truth really was that every work wrought by any agent of Heaven or Hell barely registered as a drop in the bucket of human redemption or despair. Humanity was a machine much larger than any angel or demon could hope to tinker with using the tools they'd been allowed.

Which brought Aziraphale back, frustratingly, to the stories he'd read. How could he hope to influence things for the better when it seemed there was no middle ground between doing too much and not enough? He itched to call Crowley, ask him for his insight into the matter, but his hand froze on the receiver before he'd even picked it up. The demon had made it clear the previous evening that he had no intention of rising to Anathema's challenge. He had a healthy fear of involving himself any further in human affairs, and when Aziraphale remembered how his mind had whited out in fear when he realized Crowley would have died to holy water without their warning from Agnes, Aziraphale could hardly blame him. He simply couldn't involve Crowley. It was far too dangerous.

That left only the image of Crowley that Aziraphale carried within his mind to consult, the demon on his shoulder whose advice had always privately scandalized Aziraphale with how sensible and practical it was, at its core. He'd never have admitted it before, even to himself, but having a sense of Crowley whispering in his ear had saved Aziraphale more times than he could count. (Though, not as many times as the actual Crowley had done, he reflected, a blush heating his cheeks.)

What, Aziraphale asked himself, would Crowley do?

Crowley sometimes did reconnaissance,  _ usually  _ did, if he'd worked out that people wouldn't do the job for him or if he couldn't fob the task off on Aziraphale. He tended to know much more about a situation going into it than Aziraphale had ever bothered with, whereas Aziraphale was more apt to rely on improvisation and his own genially calming nature, used to smooth over awkward situations or soothe suspicious humans when necessary.

So. Off into the world, then.

Aziraphale spent the afternoon and evening in places where people tended to gather more casually—coffee shops, parks, even venturing onto public transport (which was quite fun; why hadn't he tried this more recently?) If he happened to catch someone reading a newspaper or what looked like an article on their mobile phone, he found casual ways to strike up a conversation.

(His inner Crowley protested this point, saying that Aziraphale was being borderline creepy and using his 'I'm an angel, be calm' cheats when they showed signs of being put off. Aziraphale, who saw no reason to have a row with someone who wasn't even there, told his inner Crowley to be quiet. This was important.)

He took in opinion after opinion, some of the people seeming jaded, some of them alarmingly self-serving, but many of them just seemed resigned. Hopeless. It was pointed out to him again and again that people could easily see where there were problems, but felt those who were in a position to truly effect solutions either didn't seem interested in doing so, or worse, were actually benefiting from the lack of resolution.

One particular woman, a tired, overworked single mother despondently flipping through a newspaper on one of the Tube trains Aziraphale had found his way onto, was particularly open with him about her worries and how hopeless she sometimes felt that there might ever be resolution on any of them.

"I see," Aziraphale said, thoughtfully. "And you feel powerless to affect them yourself?"

"Well, it's the  _ politics _ , isn't it? Some of the politicians are trying, I'll grant you that," she said, but then frowned.

"Some?" Aziraphale waited, watching as she let out a deep sigh.

"Not enough." She laughed, rolling her eyes. "According to me, I suppose. Who am  _ I _ to say?"

"You are  _ you _ , my dear, and that seems like quite enough to me." Aziraphale could see she was uncomfortable with the compliment, so he changed the subject as quickly as he could. "Your concerns seem perfectly reasonable to me, if you don't mind me saying. You're much more politically aware than I am," he pointed out. 

"Didn't used to be," she admitted with a sad laugh. "Had my kids, though, and it really made me worry about what the world would look like for them. For  _ their  _ kids. What I would be leaving for them." She smiled tiredly. "Had a lot of time for late-night reading when my littlest still had trouble falling asleep unless he was lying on my shoulder."

"Do you think it  _ can _ change?"

"Hope so," she said, shrugging. "Sometimes that seems like all I  _ can _ do."

Aziraphale took a sense of the woman, beneath the world-weariness that weighed her down and beyond the more practical fatigue due to a prolonged lack of sleep. She was a sensible and keen person, her insight generally practical and true. The only thing self-serving about her was the true concern she carried for her children's short and long-term well-being, which was more than understandable as far as Aziraphale could see.

As the train pulled into yet another station, Aziraphale thanked her and placed a blessing upon her, a lessening of the strain caused by difficulties in her life and good tidings for her that would radiate onto her children as well. Their minds would be clear and focused, the woman's tasks at work less taxing for her to complete, the children's lessons at school easier to absorb.

And if he'd sent her a last-minute financial windfall as he stepped off the train, well, no one checking the books in Heaven was likely to come knocking on the door of an angel who was impervious to Hellfire over so minor a miracle, would they?

He'd made his decision, and after more research to prepare himself, he took the next step. Surely meeting with a few politicians and finding a way to appeal to their better natures couldn't be too difficult for a being with miracles at his fingertips, could it?


	5. Climate Change

Crowley let the phone ring eight times before stabbing the “End Call” button on his mobile in agitation. For all that he wouldn’t be caught discorporated without the latest, sleekest, most fiscally irresponsible technology, he sorely missed the ability to slam the handset of a landline back into its cradle, or Someone forbid, snap an outdated flip-phone shut in crisp irritation. Touching a friendly red icon to placidly hang up was woefully inadequate when it came to conveying the depths of his frustration in certain situations...like when a particular angel of his acquaintance refused to answer the phone for the seventh consecutive day.

He’d wanted to give Aziraphale space after their conversation with Anathema. He had seemed quiet and distracted on the way home, and as much as Crowley would have preferred to talk it out over a bottle of wine or several, he’d known Aziraphale long enough to understand that this was one of those things the angel would have to sort out for himself. So Crowley whiled away a couple weeks engineering a simultaneous tube station closure, cab driver strike, and major construction project downtown. 

After a well-deserved weekend nap, he figured he’d waited long enough and rang Aziraphale. The first couple times the angel didn’t answer, Crowley simply went back to scrolling aimlessly through Netflix—not quite as fulfilling as flipping through endless cable channels, but as with the blasted mobiles, time marches on. It wasn’t unusual for Aziraphale to become engrossed in a project at the bookshop and ignore the phone, or to leave it off the hook entirely if customers were feeling unduly communicative. On the third day Crowley thought it was strange, on the fifth day he started to worry, and this morning he’d woken up with a ball of cold fear where his stomach ought to have been that coiled tightly in place when Aziraphale yet again failed to  _ pick up the blessed phone _ .

Gabriel and his goons wouldn’t have come for him again so soon, would they? He’d seen the panicked uncertainty in the Archangel’s disconcertingly purple eyes, the way even Uriel had recoiled from the gout of flame he’d roared in their direction. That should have bought him and Aziraphale years, possibly even centuries, before Heaven finished licking its wounds and formulated another plan of attack. And what were the chances that Heaven would be on the move but not Hell? There was virtually no way Beelzebub and Hastur would let Heaven have the glory of capturing their renegade operative without a commensurate operation to drag Crowley back as well. Given that various dukes and lords of Hell were not currently beating down his own door, it seemed highly unlikely that Aziraphale was in any actual danger. 

And yet.

Could he really afford to take the chance? Last time he’d left a pensive and distracted Aziraphale alone to ponder, he’d come back to flaming ruin and the loss of his best friend. And this time there would be no Adam to set everything right again.

Crowley blessed loudly and creatively, then manifested his sunglasses and blazer and stormed out the door. A young philodendron, the newest addition to the collection of traumatized house plants in the neighboring room, quivered uncertainly in its basket. The older and more experienced plants in the group heaved the plant equivalent of a sigh and began clearing up any errant dull spots. Hopefully their caretaker’s return would be unremarkable, but if he came back smelling again of ashes and despair, they would need to look their best.

* * *

The Bentley skidded to a stop halfway up the kerb outside the bookshop. No smoke, no fire engines, just people passing by without a care in the world on a perfectly normal afternoon. Crowley cautiously emerged from the car and peered in through the hazy storefront windows. He saw no movement inside, although that wasn’t particularly unusual if Aziraphale was deeply absorbed in his work. He tried the door—locked. Also not particularly unusual, but also not doing anything to soothe the gnawing dread that had stayed with him all morning. 

Feeling more than a little ridiculous—really, the angel was probably just having tea in the back—Crowley flung open the locked door and stalked inside. 

“Aziraphale!” he called. “I swear, angel, I’m buying you a mobile or at least a blessed ansaphone or, Someone help me, a well-trained carrier pigeon if you can’t be arsed to answer the—” He broke off and looked around the stubbornly silent bookshelf. No angel emerging from the mountain of books on his desk or stumbling in from the back room. Nothing seemed amiss—no books flung off the shelves or ritual circles alight on the floorboards, just a stand of half-empty mugs crowded next to a mess of newspaper pages spread across the very same table where he and Aziraphale had sat together not so long ago. He glanced at the headlines in case the angel had hared off to oversee some “miraculous recoveries” at the scene of a natural disaster or other catastrophe, but he found nothing except for the usual human nonsense. A scandal implicating yet another corrupt government official, an editorial about Brexit—if only Crowley were still working for Hell; he could have skated by on the commendation for  _ that _ bit of human idiocy for decades—the latest update on a string of ongoing protests, but nothing that Aziraphale would normally pay attention to. 

After checking the back room just in case, Crowley was forced to conclude that although Aziraphale was incontrovertibly absent, it didn’t appear that he’d been kidnapped by a squad of Heaven’s finest. Dejected, he exited the bookshop, snapping halfheartedly to close the doors behind him. Just as he was about to climb back into the Bentley, he heard someone call out.

“Ey! Hey you! Mister I’m-buggering-off-to-the-stars-and-won’t even-think-of-you!”

Crowley looked around in confusion and saw a short, balding man with a graying mustache and beard leaning against the brick wall of the accountancy firm across the street, idly smoking a cigarette. The man called out to him again.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you. Come crawling back to your precious ‘angel,’ have you?” 

In the blink of an eye—less than that, really, but humans do have their limitations—Crowley stood directly in front of the unknown man. Towering over him, too close for comfort, he pinched the tip of the man’s cigarette, extinguishing it with his bare fingertips and plucking it out of the man’s startled mouth. He flicked it to the pavement.

“What do you know about him?” he growled. 

“I know that he’s better off without you, mate. Told him so when you were having your little domestic in the middle of the bloody street.” The man, recovering himself somewhat, took a step back and straightened his tie. “Seems he thinks so, too.”

“What do you mean?” Crowley demanded. 

“Shop’s been closed up for weeks, and himself packed up and left a while ago, to boot. Came out one morning and he’s loading up a cab with a bunch of ancient trunks and such like. Heard him tell the driver he’s leaving the country, doesn’t know when he’ll be coming back. You must have really put your foot in it, mate.” 

The dread in Crowley’s stomach morphed into a hollow sadness, and the man’s gloating was suddenly too much to bear. Crowley snapped his fingers, and the man’s smug face immediately went blank. Glazed eyes stared through Crowley, unseeing, waiting.

“You’re going to wake up in a minute here, and you won’t remember a thing,” Crowley hissed. “You’re not going to have a nice dream of whatever you like best, and you’re  _ definitely _ not going to have a blessed day. What you’re going to do is quit smoking. All at once, right now, cold turkey. It may not be the  _ perfect _ time for it, what with that work deadline next week and the way your stressy little mood swings are already trying your fiancé’s patience, but it’s a filthy habit, really, and what’s a little all-consuming, white-knuckled withdrawal between boyfriends? Oh, that’s right—you’re meeting his parents for the first time this weekend; it’s really too bad you won’t quite be at your best for that. Wouldn’t it be a shame if they made snap judgments about you based on one  _ really. bad. day?” _

He whirled around, leaving the man slumped against the wall, and strode off in the direction of St. James’s Park. He found himself abruptly in need of a bracing walk.

Leaving the country. It had been ages since the angel had left England for any appreciable length of time, and why would he have gone without telling Crowley beforehand? Unless the nosy little man was right. Maybe Aziraphale really had decided he was better off without Crowley. 

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. All the fights they’d had through the ages, all the times Aziraphale rebuffed Crowley’s suggestions that they work together instead of against one another, all the staunch declarations that he simply couldn’t be caught conspiring with the enemy, they all cycled through Crowley’s mind as he walked through the park. As he passed a certain duck pond he was forcefully reminded of their biggest argument, after which Aziraphale had proved for several decades that he really  _ was _ perfectly fine without Crowley—at least until the angel found himself in need of rescuing. He hurried on, only to arrive at the the third alternative rendezvous location, where Aziraphale had once again demonstrated that the gulf between them was larger for him than it had ever been for Crowley. He’d thought that after the end of the world, Aziraphale had finally understood what it meant for the two of them to be “on their own side,” but the angel had always struggled with that idea, hadn’t he? Maybe they weren’t serving their former masters anymore, but as he’d said to Anathema, Aziraphale would always be an angel and Crowley would always be a demon. A bastard angel, sure, and a demon who cared enough to nudge an interfering busybody away from the lung cancer that awaited him in a few short years, but it seemed that some lines just couldn’t be crossed.

Crowley should have known that a walk in the park would just turn into a stroll down memory lane, and not in the good way. He headed down the path that would lead him back to the north side of the park where it would only be a few blocks back to the Bentley. His route took him by a group who had set up some kind of demonstration during the time he’d been meandering about. As he drew close enough to hear the chanting— _Hey hey, ho ho, climate change has got to go!_ — he saw protestors of all ages holding signs and passing out informational leaflets to anyone walking by.

Remarkable, really, that these humans expended so much effort agitating for change when, in all likelihood, only the tiniest bit of progress might be made in their own lifetimes. Their existences were but the blink of an eye against the stretch of eternity, yet they cared so much about the future, about the state of a planet that would persist long after they were dead and buried.

But even after all these protestors and all their descendents had passed on, Crowley would remain. He had walked the earth essentially alone before, but it had been a very different Earth back then, in the Beginning. In those early days it had been all lush jungles and clear rivers and clean, wind-swept sand dunes. He imagined walking at the end of the world instead, the planet a burnt-out husk with choking skies, decimated forests, and trash-clogged oceans. Instead of watching humanity unfurl before him as scattered tribes flourished into villages then towns then bustling cities, he would see those same cities abandoned as humanity dwindled with each passing age, himself a silent witness as helpless as he’d been the last time civilization—except for Noah and his ilk—had been cut down by the waters of a righteous, unforgiving flood.

Except maybe this time he wouldn’t be so powerless. What had Anathema said,  _ humans make a difference all the time?  _ If these humans with their mayfly lifespans, who could scarcely even envision the pristine world Crowley had inhabited when time began, could care so much and work so hard, then perhaps Crowley owed it to them to try as well. 

He slowed to look more closely at the protestors. The chants had quieted now, and a woman with a megaphone was speaking about carbon emissions and clean energy. Crowley scanned the various signs and placards throughout the group, chuckling at the clever ones. _ You can’t comb over climate change;  _ indeed not. A common theme seemed to be  _ Save the Amazon _ , or some variation thereof. He recalled Anathema ranting about the rainforest—the Amazon was a rainforest, wasn’t it? She had been especially distressed that it was shrinking and couldn’t absorb as much C-O-2, whatever that was. 

He may not know much about C-O-2, Crowley mused, but he certainly knew a thing or two about plants. Specifically, about how to keep plants from slacking off when they ought to be growing to their full potential. Apparently this Amazon was falling down on the job. Maybe it would benefit from a firm hand and a warning about the consequences of disappointing Earth’s resident demon.

Crowley quickly moved past the demonstration and onwards to the streets of Soho. He would pick up the Bentley and prepare for a trip to South America. Now that he thought about it, there were rainforests in Asia and Africa too, weren’t there? He thought of leaving word for Aziraphale, then remembered with a pang that the angel probably didn’t care one way or the other about Crowley’s comings and goings. He probably wouldn’t even approve of Crowley’s decision to help the humans save their climate; when they met with Anathema, the angel had been adamant about not getting involved in human affairs. Well, Aziraphale may have been strong enough to remain aloof, but once again, Crowley had failed to live up to Aziraphale’s expectations. He sighed, casting one final look at the abandoned bookshop as he got in the Bentley had sped home. At this point it was clear that Aziraphale knew better than to expect anything from a demon; maybe the angel had finally realized that Crowley could only ever disappoint him.

Well. In the end, it was nothing new. Crowley had millennia of experience being a disappointment. He knew what happened to  _ disappointments.  _ And soon the Amazon would, too.


	6. Chapter 6

~~ Dearest ~~ Dear Crowley,

I really must begin with an apology. I'm afraid I got rather ahead of myself on a new project and I completely underestimated how long it would take to complete. I've realized how long it's been since we were last in contact and I  ~~ didn't want you to worry ~~ thought it prudent to update you on my well-being, given our mutual concerns about possible renewed attention from our past employers.

I can assure you that I am well and my absence from London has nothing to do with any machinations from Above. In fact, this new endeavor of mine has been such a rousing success that I'm determined to expand my efforts further, necessitating a longer absence from London.  ~~I do miss you, Crowley. Every day, if you must know, though I know you'd be making that insufferable smirk as you read this~~

Upon my return, I'd be happy to divulge the details to you.  ~~ Perhaps we could finally have that picnic? ~~

~~ Yours, ~~

Aziraphale

* * *

Aziraphale frowned down at the paper, wondering if the slight marks on the paper where he just might have used a miracle or two in order to remove a few ill-chosen phrases would be discernible to Crowley.

That led, unfortunately, to more second-guessing about putting the letter in the post at all. Before, entire world governments would have time to rise and fall between their chance encounters. It was really rather presumptuous of Aziraphale to presuppose that Crowley might be worried at all after only a month or two of unannounced absence.

He sighed, looking down at the letter, and nearly reached out to crumple it into rubbish. He stopped himself when his fingertips hit the paper, tracing over where he'd written Crowley's name.

He was being ridiculous.

Crowley certainly wasn't languishing in an impersonal, miserably bland hotel room somewhere and pining for one of their lovely trips out to enjoy London together. Crowley had shaken off Anathema's pointed questions entirely, putting forth sensible arguments to explain why they didn't ordinarily involve themselves too heavily in human affairs.

No, it had been Aziraphale who'd been drawn in, only to find himself quite over his head. 

He'd met more than his share of world leaders before in his eons on Earth, sometimes by chance, sometimes at the request of his heavenly superiors, but never before had things gone so poorly.

Oh, at first he'd been hopeful about the progress he was making. It had been, after all, a simple application of miracles that had garnered him the first series of meetings with members of Parliament. If a snap of his fingers had given some of their staff members the impression that Aziraphale had been rather a large donor of theirs in the last election, who was Aziraphale to correct them? And if that had encouraged them to accept his request for a private meeting with the PM they worked for, well, given the grave concerns Aziraphale had for the state of things, it would have been irresponsible, really, for him not to take advantage of the misunderstanding.

It all would have been quite the triumph, a well-laid plan, just as well-executed. A few judicious words here and there, the application of some divine inspiration? The prevarications necessary to make it all possible would've been a mere trifle in the face of all the good that would come out of it. Lives would be made better, the Earth could continue to provide everything necessary to sustain healthy, happy human lives.

If only a single, solitary one of them would just  _ listen _ .

It had been easy to believe, in the beginning, that they had been listening. They'd certainly seemed attentive as Aziraphale had laid out his concerns, following up with discrete, actionable suggestions for them (based on the research Aziraphale had done, following up on the worries that had been shared with him.) There had been so many positive responses, assurances that remedies would be sought, that laws would soon be drafted.

In the first handful of meetings, Aziraphale had taken the eventual (scandalously unambiguous) solicitations for further monetary donations in stride. It was, it seemed, a necessary evil in modern politics. Campaigning, he'd been assured, was expensive, and it was important to reach the "hearts and minds" of the voting public to ensure there was someone in office who would put the needs of the people—the very concerns that Aziraphale had come to speak to them about, in fact—first.

(He hadn't, of course, made any donations. If the people he spoke to had already been placed in office by humanity, they were the ones Aziraphale would have to make his case to. But the mere thought of using one of his miracles to actually ensure reelection for them—that was too close to direct meddling for Aziraphale's taste. He would no more install his own puppets in the governments of the world than he would force a change of heart on any of them already there.)

He'd left those first meetings hopeful about the promises that had been made, about how eagerly they had taken in the issues Aziraphale had put before them.

It had been a nasty shock, then, when every last one of them had failed to act on any of the grave problems Aziraphale had spoken to them about. The workings of the political machine had gone on as though none of the discussions had even taken place, or worse—several of them had taken up positions  _ contrary  _ to those they'd smiled and nodded about while in Aziraphale's presence.

Well, Aziraphale had reasoned. Each ruling body was different, as they'd been from the dawn of the first attempts the human race had made to organize themselves. If the United Kingdom wasn’t ready to act on the issues Aziraphale could now see needed urgent action, he'd find a government more ready to take them on.

Aziraphale slumped back on the cold, hard mattress of this awful hotel room he'd let for himself, rubbing his hands over his weary eyes and feeling the deep stirrings of the tension in his neck and shoulders. He was on his fifth country now, working his way through yet another political system that seemed ill-equipped to take on the global problems that were facing all of humanity.

The tongues they spoke in were different, but they were all speaking the same meaningless, glad-handing language of vagarity and inaction. Even those Aziraphale encountered who seemed to be truly concerned apparently had no actual ability to effect change, steamrolled by old grudges between rival parties and preoccupation with much more inconsequential "problems."

Was there even any point in continuing to try?

He spent a frustrating night second-guessing himself and the mission he'd sent himself on. When morning finally came, he wrote Crowley's name on the outside of the envelope containing his letter and dropped it in the local post.

(And, fully expecting everyone who came into contact with the letter to know exactly what to do to get it to Crowley, they, of course, would.)

* * *

Crowley hopped off the back of the cargo truck and spat dust out of his mouth. The ride from the lumber mill to this nondescript but presumably important location deep within the Amazon rainforest had been long, bumpy, and altogether unpleasant. He was sore to the point of numbness from all the jostling as he had clung to the rear bumper, unseen by the crew who rode…only slightly more comfortably inside the covered cargo bay. In retrospect, he probably could have transformed into a snake and made his own way in, but it had seemed silly not to take advantage of the chain of trucks, tractors, and trailers that wound their way inward from the various industrial facilities on the outskirts of the forest.

The others didn’t seem bothered by the dust, nor the heat, nor the rough ride as they poured forth from the vehicle and immediately got to work. Crowley wasn’t interested in waiting around to see what they were up to; he was on a mission. He slipped away from the group, easily disappearing from sight amid the dense vegetation. 

The dense and  _ completely healthy-looking _ vegetation. Was he in the right place? It was hard to imagine that this thriving, verdant land was in need of “saving.” Maybe there was some disturbance further in, but here, surrounded by green ferns and palm fronds, with shafts of golden sunlight filtering down through gaps in the branches above, Crowley couldn’t see anything wrong at all.

The trees thinned as he arrived in a clearing along the banks of a slow, winding stream. He’d been walking for hours, now, but he still had yet to see anything out of order. No brown spots on the leaves, no shriveled vines; even the wildlife seemed relatively healthy and happy, as far as Crowley could tell. Nevertheless…

He climbed up on a huge, moss-covered boulder beside the river and cleared his throat.

“Alright then, listen up, everyone! I’ve been getting complaints. The humans need you to make more oxygen. Or eat more CO 2 . Or something like that. I don’t know the details—I’m more of a big-picture kind of guy. But what I’m getting from all this is that you are failing to  _ meet expectations _ .” He put his hands on his hips and eyed the various trees and plants in the vicinity. 

“Maybe you’re feeling tired. Been working for a long time, need a bit of a breather. Now, normally I’d be the first one to encourage a little good, old-fashioned slothfulness, but I’m telling you, now is  _ not the time _ .” He removed his glasses, the better to make sure this Amazon knew exactly who it was dealing with. “So I’m going to need you to pick up the slack, or I might become disappointed. Might even get angry. And I promise you, you do  _ not  _ want to see me when I’m angry,” he finished menacingly. 

A warm breeze wafted through the trees and into the clearing, swirling around Crowley and rustling his hair. As it curled around him, almost cradling him, Crowley heard a kind but weary voice carried on the wind.

_ Of course we are tired, honored serpent. We wonder if you could ever know how tired. But that is not why we are failing. _

Crowley startled, and he twisted around in the loose grasp of the air currents, looking around to find the source of the voice. 

_ Peace,  _ the voice sighed past his ear.  _ We mean no harm. But you cannot simply demand impossible things of us without hearing our side of the story.  _ If disembodied voices were capable of arching an eyebrow, this one absolutely would have.

In all his years of…engaging in emphatic motivational dialogue with own houseplants, Crowley had never actually expected, much less  _ received _ , a response _.  _ His charges had never argued with him, never offered any excuses or explanations for their behavior. Which was as it should be, of course; it wouldn’t do to have the residents growing unruly and talking back. Experience had taught Crowley that what any good garden needed was a firm hand and a healthy amount of fear and respect. And consequences, should anyone fall short. But here was a thriving, perfect forest that Crowley’s home collection could only aspire to, presumably without any yelling, er,  _ motivation _ required. In fact, it didn’t seem afraid of him at all.

He sat down heavily on the boulder. Huh, maybe that was something to think about once he was back home. But for now there were more important issues at hand. 

“Well, okay then, what is it? From what I can see, you look pretty healthy. Good soil, plenty of water, plenty of sun…up there at the top, anyway. But if that’s not the problem, and you’re not just getting old and lazy, what’s the deal? 

_ We felt your passage into this place, _ the voice said.  _ You came in on the back of one of those evil machines. What did you see when you entered? _

Crowley recalled his ride in the huge diesel-fed truck, rolling over packed dirt roads carved through the heart of the forest. They had passed camps built around mine shafts, tent cities erected in huge, cleared pockets of forest surrounded by felled trees, where the buzz of enormous circular saws followed them for miles like a swarm of angry hornets. When the truck eventually came to a halt, workers had climbed out and begun inspecting the area, stopping to spray-paint neon marks on certain trees that met some criteria unknown to Crowley. 

“They’re cutting you down,” he said at last. “But can’t you just…I dunno, grow new trees? Drop some more seeds, circle of life and all that?”

_ We cannot keep up, _ the forest replied.  _ They are too hungry for the wood, the ore, the very land itself. When they are done cutting trees, they will burn what is left to make room for their cattle and slaughterhouses and whatever else they desire.  _ The zephyr swirling around Crowey intensified, sending a brief, sharp gust which threatened to unseat him from his perch atop the boulder. The forest continued, with more than a little reproach,  _ You have watched them spread out to cover the world with their towering, sprawling cities. Do you think it has all come without a cost? _

Crowley steadied himself as the breeze subsided once again, point made. He  _ had  _ watched. He—and Aziraphale, too—had looked on with pride and fondness as the humans ventured forth from the Garden and gradually established themselves in all corners of the globe. Crowley had admired the way they always reached beyond the horizon, rushing forward to the next big thing. Certainly there were heavy costs along the way, at times, but wasn’t that just part of progress? Crowley himself had always been eager to embrace the latest technology, the newest and fanciest conveniences. But, he mused, Aziraphale had never been the same. Sure, he enjoyed certain comforts of civilization—pretty much no one could deny that life had gotten a  _ lot  _ better with the advent of water sanitation and sewage systems—but past a certain point, progress seemed to unsettle him. He was much more inclined to cling to old customs and fashions, and to reminisce about old times rather than speculate about the future. Crowley imagined bulldozers running roughshod over the beautiful palms and flowering vines around him. Could this be why?

_ So,  _ the forest gently interrupted his contemplation, _ you see why your demands fail to move us. There is nothing with which you can threaten us that we do not already suffer. We have given to this world all that we can _ — _ even now, we continue to give, though it will never be enough.  _

Crowley felt a pang of sympathy for the forest. He knew a thing or two about trying your best and coming up short. About going along, business as usual, only to have the rug pulled out from under you when the rules suddenly changed. Crowley had managed to reforge himself into something new, eke out a place for himself in the rush of progress and change. But he couldn’t see a way for this rainforest to do the same. 

“It’s—” He swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. “I know it’s not enough. It should be. I’m—It’s not fair.” He looked down at his lap, taking a long moment to wipe clean the lenses of his dark glasses, though of course they were already spotless. 

“There are some humans who care. Who want to save you,” he offered weakly. “They’re trying their best, too, and God knows they’ve always had Her favor. Maybe they can be good enough, even if neither of us could.”

The breeze caressed him one last time before flowing away to rustle the leaves of the foliage beyond the clearing. With a heavy heart, he got up and began to slowly make his way back to civilization. The Amazon seemed resigned to its fate, and Crowley couldn’t blame it. Its future seemed to be quite firmly in the hands of the humans, now. But if he could do nothing for this forest, perhaps there were others that he could still help. Perhaps it wasn’t too late for all of them.

* * *

With the sound of laughter echoing behind him, Crowley fled to the Land Rover, threw himself behind the wheel, and slammed the door closed after him. Although the miraculously well-funded research team had been able to purchase a miraculously luxurious yet sturdy vehicle for their miraculously approved last-minute expedition, Crowley experienced a moment’s powerful longing for the familiar and comforting interior of the Bentley as he took a moment to collect himself.

His encounter with this section of the Southeast Asian rainforest had…not gone entirely as expected. Had not, in all honesty, come within shouting distance of “as expected.” The moment he set foot upon the thick layer of decomposing leaves and bark that covered the forest floor, he felt something powerful and old. To  _ him _ —an eternal being who had spun comets and stars out of Her own divine energy—this place felt  _ old. _ The unfamiliar sensation had immediately put him on edge, and he seriously considered leaving before whatever was causing it woke up and took notice. He had begun to suspect that, like the Amazon rainforest, there was likely nothing wrong with the plants themselves; if the dense canopy that blocked out all the sunlight and wind and sound from above was any indication, the denizens of the forest were growing just fine. But that strange and alien feeling gave him pause. So Crowley had slithered deeper into the forest and, against his better judgment (which was really saying something, when he thought about it), sought out the source of the pervasive unease.

This time, when he reached out to the forest he was unsurprised to receive a response. What  _ did _ surprise him was the nature of that response: leaves trembled on their branches, lianas swayed between the trees, all manner of monkeys and marmosets and mongooses screeched and howled with…laughter?

Where the Amazon had been gentle, if resigned and tired, this rainforest exuded bitterness and a deep, ancient resentment. This forest cared nothing for the humans and their designs. This forest had existed for time immemorial before the humans, and it would exist long after the humans were gone. Let them dig their mine shafts, let them clear the trees, let them bring in their farms and factories and cities. Every tree they cut down, every acre they set ablaze, was simply another nail in humanity’s own coffin—and once they had burned themselves out, the forest would consume their bones to cover the Earth once more. 

Crowley had blinked, taken aback. “Well, that’s a bit much. Surely this can all be resolved without, you know, the consumption of bones. Look,” he had continued, “I see you’ve definitely got your own thing going on here—and that’s great, not trying to mess with your whole…system. But things are reaching some kind of breaking point. Changes are happening that can’t be undone, and we—they, the humans—are running out of time.”

_ Time,  _ sneered a deep and creaky voice that, in the oppressive stillness, was not carried on any breeze but rather seemed to form within Crowley’s own mind.  _ You may think you know eternity from your dominion in the heavens and the depths, snakeling, but you know nothing of the eternity of Earth. We have more time than even  _ your _ mind can comprehend.  _ The trees had resumed their rustling, and the various creatures living among them raised their voices once more in raucous, maniacal howls. The very detritus upon which Crowley stood had rippled and writhed as the vipers which made their homes underneath thrashed with renewed paroxysms of laughter, hissing and chortling to each other in sibilant susurrations that swept across the forest floor as they mocked him— _ him,  _ the original Serpent of Eden, the ungrateful little traitors!  _ Don’t be so sure that we won’t feast upon your bones one day, as well. _

Shaken, Crowley had run.

* * *

Crowley was still feeling unsettled by the time he made it back to the research base camp. This trip had clearly been a mistake, and maybe this whole project was a fool’s errand. The Amazon hadn’t been particularly moved by what he had to say, and  _ this _ place…well, Crowley’s prefrontal cortex was already hard at work burying the whole debacle and putting it under lock and key. He still had another location he’d planned to visit, but that had been more of a last resort. If he was honest—and why was that becoming increasingly common these days?—he had hoped to accomplish his goals before a trip to the Congo became necessary. Nothing against the old basin, of course, but it was just a little too close to home, a place he tried to steer clear of like an old scar that he knew better than to touch. But he had struck out twice so far, and even if he failed  _ again _ , at least his old stomping grounds wouldn’t laugh him off the continent. Probably.

He parked the Land Rover and headed back to the large tent where he and “his” researchers rested and analyzed their data. Sure, they all technically worked for him, but he’d found that the whole operation ran much more smoothly if he let them do their thing while he provided the money and stayed more or less out of the way. As he entered the tent his lead scientist, Nashaba, immediately approached, some kind of paper in her hand. Crowley inwardly groaned. He was really not in the mood to go over any readings or reports right now. Behind his back, he snapped his fingers, and frantic beeping erupted in the distance. All the researchers in the tent perked up, listening intently for a few seconds, then groaned in dismay. 

“Are you serious?”

“We just got that one set up! How did it lose connection already?”

“Ahmad, I swear to god if you forgot to secure the cables again—”

“That was  _ one time _ . Blasted lemurs probably chewed through something important, that’s all.”

“You better hope it’s lemurs,” Nashaba responded darkly. “Come on, let’s go check it out. And we’re  _ all  _ going this time.”

His team reluctantly put on their boots, gathered up their toolboxes, and went to pile into the Land Rover. On the way out the door flap, Nashaba pressed the paper she’d been holding into Crowley’s hands. 

“Letter for you, professor.” Under other circumstances, she likely would have been disconcerted by the fact that their isolated camp had somehow been included on a mail delivery route, but at the moment? Lemurs.

Once the team was gone, Crowley sat down on his camp cot and eyed the letter with trepidation, not quite able to believe what he apparently held in his hand. The envelope was clearly battered and stained from its travels, but it was made of thick, sturdy paper and bore his name in a familiar script on the front. The address below his name was smudged to illegibility, and the envelope bore no stamp or postmark; that the letter had made its way to him at all was proof enough of its provenance. But just in case…although he was alone in a tent in the middle of a remote jungle, he checked his surroundings before ducking his head and inhaling sharply, surreptitiously flicking out his tongue—maybe a little over the top, but centuries of paranoid habit were hard to break. Below the myriad scents that told a tale of transportation across miles of land and sea, apparently involving trucks and caravans and either a fishing boat or an unnaturally industrious and cooperative dolphin, the familiar smell of dusty parchment and a certain sharp radiance forced Crowley to conclude that somehow, against all reason, Aziraphale really had sent him a message. 

Relief replaced suspicion in his heart, and he tore open the envelope and quickly skimmed its contents. Once he saw that Aziraphale was apparently safe and sound, he went back and began to dissect the letter more carefully. The angel’s initial apology—and, my, how times did change—went a long way towards soothing Crowley’s only somewhat buried feelings of indignation over being left behind without a word, and what frustration still remained was swept aside by fond exasperation as he read that Aziraphale was, yet again, caught up in some “new endeavor” into which he would throw himself with single-minded determination until he ultimately emerged beaming and triumphant, or… _ or.  _

Aziraphale imprisoned in chains by mad French peasants; Aziraphale held at gunpoint by mad Nazi spies; Aziraphale inconveniently discorporated and/or consumed in a fiery blaze by mad…Shadwell. 

_ Or until it all fell apart. _

The thing about Aziraphale’s various plans and projects was that, historically, they were always “a rousing success” right up until the moment things went pear-shaped. Heaven’s top brass had a dangerously limited understanding of humanity, which overwhelmingly worked in his and Aziraphale’s favor but occasionally put the angel in a tight spot when he was made to carry out their ill-conceived missions. In the past, the Arrangement had always provided a way to let Crowley keep an eye on things and step in if matters ever got truly out of hand, but they were in uncharted territory now. Post-Arrangement. How would he know if Aziraphale needed help, now that they no longer had a reason to coordinate their plans and agendas? He could live with Aziraphale running off by himself so long as the only consequence of that was Crowley, ugh,  _ missing him _ , but he wasn’t sure if he could live with Aziraphale running off and putting himself in danger with no safety net. 

He seized a nearby piece of paper—the back of a soil nutrient analysis printout; if his team was smart, they’d have an electronic backup somewhere—with the intention of writing back, demanding to know where Aziraphale was and which potentially mad associates he was…associating with  _ this _ time. As he put pen to paper, though, he paused. Post-Arrangement. That meant this wasn’t some harebrained scheme of Heaven’s but rather a project of Aziraphale’s own devising. Something that the angel wanted to do of his own volition, something important to him, something that he apparently wanted to do on his own. Crowley found himself reluctant to butt in where he wasn’t wanted, and it certainly wouldn’t do to suggest that Aziraphale couldn’t handle himself. The most he could do right now was keep the line of communication open and see if Aziraphale would eventually share his plans. He didn’t seem particularly inclined to confide in Crowley at the moment, but perhaps if he opened up about his own project…Post-Arrangement or not, their relationship had always been based on give and take. More calmly this time, he began to write.

* * *

Angel,

Glad to hear you’re not in trouble with your old boss. Or mine.  ~~ I was worried ~~ I think we should be in the clear for a while yet, but you can never be too careful; walls have eyes and ears and probably fingertips in case people are sending secret messages in braille. 

What’s this about a new project? I’ll admit, I’m intrigued. Sounds like it’s going well, though—and of course it is, why wouldn’t it be? I’m sure you’ve got everything firmly in hand, but just in case, you know me—team player, that’s me; just ask...well, never mind, best not to ask anyone, actually. But you know.

As it so happens, I have my own little “project” as well, although I’m not sure it’s going half as swimmingly as yours. London was getting kind of boring  ~~ without you ~~ , so I thought I’d see what book-girl was on about with all the rainforest stuff—turns out she was right. Can you believe these humans are actually bulldozing their own air supply? It’s all “save the rainforest, save the rainforest,” but let me tell you, angel, the rainforest is  _ fine _ . Or at least it would be if they would quit chopping it down and building overtop of it. I thought maybe it just needed the proper motivation to grow better, but...it’s beautiful, Aziraphale. Beautiful and rich and  _ old _ —angel, how long was this place sitting around empty before She put the humans in the Garden? I know it was only supposed to be a couple of days, but I swear there’s this cranky old forest down in Malaysia…

Anyway, never mind all that. I’m sure you're busy working on your rousingly successful project, don’t want to take up too much of your time. Take care of yourself, tickety-whatever & so forth.  ~~ I’m glad you wrote. ~~

-C.


End file.
